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TOPIC: Why Chennai feels like Venice to me this year
BLOG: SCROLL.IN
WRITER: Carlo Pizaati

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MEANINGS are given in BOLD and ITALIC

It’s that time of the year again when, if you’ve ever lived in Venice, you start getting nostalgic(If you feel nostalgic, you think affectionately about experiences you had in the past.-उदासीन) for the city of canals, its gondolas(A gondola is a long narrow boat that is used especially in Venice. ) and the worst tourist food you can find in Italy. Those foggy mornings on the Laguna. The strolls(If you stroll somewhere, you walk there in a slow, relaxed way.-चहलकदमी) along the alleys(An alley is a narrow passage or street with buildings or walls on both sides.-पगडंडी). The placid(Calm) waters shining melancholically(If you describe someone or something as melancholic, you mean that they are very sad. ) in the channels. Ah, Venezia, the glory of St Mark’s Winged Lion, the vestige(अवशेष) of European romantics. Ah, Venezia, the stench of sewers everywhere.

There is, alas, no Venezia for me anymore. I now live in Chennai.

Every year, I long for the sounds of the Grand Canal that I heard from my apartment south of the Rialto Bridge. The apartment was on the top floor of my aunt’s palazzo and the gondoliers(It is a place name in venice) pretended that it once belonged to Marco Polo, even though the Venetian explorer had actually lived at il Milione’s courtyard(A courtyard is an open area of ground which is surrounded by buildings or walls.-आंगन), many oaring(Oars are long poles with a wide, flat blade at one end which are used for rowing a boat.-चप्पू) calories upstream. The burly(broad) gondoliers would beg me to wave at the Argentinean, Chinese, Indian and Russian tourists yelling “Marco Polo!” whenever I went to close the windows. And I obliged them by bending one arm, turning a hand towards me, tilting my head and giving what I described as “the papal salute”.

This year, however, I’m feeling less maudlin(very sentimental) than usual. I look around me in Chennai and I gaze at familiar scenery – the canals, the boats, the swashing of water(move with a splashing sound.), the incessant(constant) rain. Just like Venice. Human vultures are taking advantage of a submerged city by selling milk packets off little boats for Rs 100. Again, just like Venice, where rich tourists are skinned with “special prices”. Suddenly Chennai, it appears, has its own brand of Merchants of Venice. It has sweaty crowds of commuters(Travelers) instead of sweaty crowds of tourists, packed temples instead of packed churches, auto rickshaws instead of gondolas, dengue-delivering kosu instead of just annoying zanzare(Mosquito in SPANISH).

I see it now: ah, Venezia, you’ve come to me.

My Venice has come to my Chennai in other ways.

Venice, of course, is sinking naturally because of time, gravity. And yet misguided projects like lucrative(very profitable) movable dams at the entrance of the Laguna (many politicians have gone to jail for this corruption scandal) are helping the water inch further into the fabric of the crumbling(break into lot of pieces) palazzos. Further, the movement of Leviathan-sized(something very large and difficult to control) cruise ships, towering above the floating city’s roofline, has increased the dangers of moto ondoso, a wave motion hitting the foundations and sides of the poor old palazzos.

Similarly, my Chennai has caved in to profit and corruption, by selling out reservoir land space and making the waters drown the poorer neighborhoods. Tutto il mondo è paese, they say in Venice – the whole world is just like your own village. Reassuring and scary at the same time, I say to myself, as I swing my papal wave to the autos sailing through canals of stinky water along the Old Mahabalipuram Road.

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